


Academia!

by ScarletRaven1001



Category: Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Vegebul - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Comedy, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, F/M, Inspired by Fanart, Rating May Change, Romance, Suggestive Themes, Swearing, Vegebul
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-08-07 00:12:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16397750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletRaven1001/pseuds/ScarletRaven1001
Summary: Vegeta is the stuck-up school prefect, and Bulma is the plucky new student. They get on each other’s nerves over every silly little thing, but you know what they say in high school: the more you hate, the more you love!A Vegebul high school AU!





	1. The New Girl

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by the lovely [High School AU fanart](https://okebtrash.tumblr.com/post/179337630139/my-ecchi-romance-high-school-au-fantasy-continues) of [Okebtrash](https://okebtrash.tumblr.com/)! :)  
> I know that I still have a couple of other unfinished fics, but this story was just flashing so vividly in my head that I just had to write it!  
> I hope you all enjoy this! Feedback would be very much appreciated.

Sometimes, Vegeta Ouji hated being perfect.

He scoffed as he watched over the wide, open courtyard of the school from one of the small balconies overlooking the grounds, observing the _simpletons_ that he called his schoolmates engage in their mundane activities.

Kakarot, the idiot, was plowing through several piles of boxed lunches beneath the shade of one of the large trees, while the infuriating black mess that he called his hair flew every which way above his head. His irritating female companion – who basically functioned as his lunch-maid – sat beside him, positively mooning over his every bite.

He turned his critical dark gaze away from the embarrassing display to watch the rough-housing of two large Seniors off to the side, a flurry of hair roiling as Nappa, whose bald head was gleaming in the sun, was unceremoniously wrestled down by Raditz and his untamable fall of thick, dark hair.

“Oi!” he barked. “Stop that right now!”

Raditz dropped Nappa at Vegeta’s command, raising his hands up to his sides as if in a show of innocence.

“He started it!” Raditz said, making Vegeta growl.

“You were the one who fucking tackled him,” he snarled, eying the two delinquents. “And fix your uniforms! You are a disgrace to this institution.”

Vegeta watched the two larger men gulp, before hurriedly pulling down their thick, navy blue school uniform jackets, snapping the buttons closed up to their necks.

“I wasn’t doing anything,” Nappa hissed, glaring at the long-haired student.

Raditz was desperately trying to pull his hair back into a thin rubber band, and Vegeta rolled his eyes skywards as he made mental bets on how long it would take before the flimsy thing snapped.

“Shit!” Raditz said as the band did just that, and Vegeta very nearly smirked.

In response, he brushed back his own well-coiffed dark hair, fanning above his head from the perfectly-shaped “V” of his widow’s peak.

Oh yes, he truly hated being perfect.

Being the flawless, elite student that he was, it had been inevitable that the faculty of Shenron High would give him the irritating responsibility of being the school’s _student_ _prefect._

After all, who else could they select?

He was the top student academically, a phenomenal athlete, and on top of that, he was hot, if he did say so himself.

He was, clearly, the best and only choice.

Yet, while it was an honor to be designated as such, it also kept him from pursuing his more dubious interests, that he used to indulge in after school hours.

He _needed_ to project his perfection.

There was absolutely no one in school who could pose even a slight threat to his eventual graduation as school valedictorian, and this, to Vegeta, was a huge source of pride.

The small mobile phone in his pocket began to ring with a very particular tone, and he raised a brow in question.

That was the principal’s personal line…

Vegeta tapped on the phone icon, bringing the small gadget to his ear. “Yes, Principal Piccolo?”

“Vegeta,” the principal answered, and in his mind’s eye, the prefect could clearly picture the perpetually-exhausted school administrator, with his dark brows furrowed over his narrow eyes, his skin nearly green with his continuous consumption of herbal tea.

“Is something the matter, Principal?”

“I just need you to come over to my office right now, for a short while,” Piccolo said. “I have a new student here, joining us tomorrow, that I need you to take on a school tour.”

Both of Vegeta’s brows raised at this. “A special tour? ”

“Yes. Come quickly,” he said, before the line was abruptly cut.

Intrigued, Vegeta held a warning finger up to his two self-appointed minions as he turned to head to the Principal’s Office.

He straightened his uniform, fidgeting slightly as he walked.

Something felt… odd… to him, and he couldn’t quite figure it out, but he knew that it had everything to do with whatever awaited him behind the office door.

With a quick rap of his knuckles on the wood, he pushed the door in, only to find Mr. Piccolo seated behind his desk, opposite someone who had the strangest blue hair that Vegeta had ever seen.

Judging by the hair and the slope of the person’s narrow shoulders, it was clear to him that he was looking at a girl.

Obviously the new student that he was supposed to give a tour to, the girl was thin, and from the looks of it, not very tall.

This suited him just fine, since, to Vegeta’s eternal consternation, his perfection was marred by the fact that he was of _slightly_ below average height.

“Vegeta,” Piccolo greeted. “Thank you for coming. I would like to introduce you to our new student-”

Piccolo gestured to the girl, who turned around in her seat to face him…

“-Bulma Briefs.”

Vegeta’s steps halted as their eyes met.

The girl was… different.

He felt his heart thunder in his chest as he slowly took in the sight of her wide blue eyes, topped by freakishly thick lashes. Her thin lips were turned up into a friendly smile, her cheeks pinkish, framed by long strands of straight sky-blue hair.

He was floored as he realized that he had absolutely no clue as to why every fiber of his being had gone haywire at the sight of her.

She was making him feel strange things…

He didn’t _like_ feeling like this!

He _hated_ her already.

“Hello, Vegeta,” she greeted, and the sound of his name in her cheerful voice made his ears flap weirdly.

“Good afternoon,” he said promptly, coldly.

“Bulma here is a new student, and I do mean new, as she had been homeschooled her entire life,” Piccolo spoke, grabbing Vegeta’s attention away from his already growing ire. “She has never been been enrolled to school before, and I want to ask you to help her integrate.”

Vegeta glanced back at her, desperately trying to keep his brow from raising in intrigue.

“You may have heard of her family, she is from the Briefs family of Capsule Corporation,” Piccolo continued, and at this, Vegeta’s brows flew up without his consent.

“Why on earth is the daughter of a billionaire entering public school?” he blurted out before he could stop himself.

Bulma grinned. “I was just curious. I wanna see what school is like. I’ve never been around kids my age, before.”

“Well, now that’s settled,” the principal said, leaning slightly back on his creaky office chair. “Vegeta will take you with him, now. He will help you pick up your books and uniforms, as well as your class schedule. Welcome to Shenron High, Bulma.”

The girl beamed as she stood, bouncing over to Vegeta who stood rigid, a few steps away.

“Thank you Mr. Piccolo,” she said sweetly, before turning back to him. “Shall we?”

Vegeta fought back the urge to snarl at her unwelcome familiarity, his struggle made harder by the fact that he had accidentally glanced down…

And was greeted by long, shapely, pearl-white legs that stuck out beneath the shortest damn skirt he had ever seen on any living woman.

“ _How… obscene!”_ he thought, even while his eyes fought to keep gazing at the sight.

He forcibly dragged his eyes back to her face, where he looked upon the most infuriatingly smug grin.

She had _seen_ him looking.

As they walked out of the office, she paused in front of the closed door, standing before him with her weight on her right foot, hands on her hips as she appraised him.

He bristled, a rude response to her frankly uncomfortable scrutiny forming on his lips, but his words died in his throat when she grinned, and loudly spoke.

“You know, you’re kinda cute!” she observed.

His blood rushed to his face as he sputtered in a mixture of rage and embarrassment, hands clenching at his sides.

“You- you- you are a _vulgar_ woman!” he stuttered in discomfort, getting even angrier when the stupid girl just laughed.

“You are!” she said. “And I can’t wait to be friends with you!”

“We are _not_ going to become _friends,_ you impudent-”

“I think I’m gonna have a lot of fun here!” she said, seemingly oblivious to his fury.

She bounced on her heels before she pivoted, turning away from him to peek around the corner of the line of rooms.

Bulma was grinning widely as she glanced over her shoulder at him. “Well? Let’s go! I am so excited to finally be in high school!”

Vegeta growled low, beyond irritated.

This was going to suck. He just knew it.

And unfortunately for him, he also knew that it was just the beginning.

8-8-8-8-8

 

**_On the next chapter –_ **

_Bulma starts making friends… high school looks a lot less complicated than she thought, because everyone seems to like her already! Well… everyone but the prefect. It’s too bad that he’s such a jerk, coz he really_ is _cute!_

**_Stay tuned!_ **


	2. The Prefect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bulma begins adjusting to her new school, and Vegeta is inexplicably annoyed by absolutely everything about her. However, when the blue-haired girl gets herself in a bit of a bind, he finds himself jumping to the rescue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Sorry for taking so long with this update. My job has been terrible to my fanfic-life lately, but this story (because of all the amazing fanart OMG) has been screaming in my head, so I really needed to write it!  
> I hope you all enjoy this! Feedback would be very much appreciated.

Everything she did made him angry.

Everything.

From his usual perch at the edge of a small balcony, Vegeta watched the blue-haired _succubus_ as she flounced around the school grounds, her infuriatingly short skirt flitting annoyingly around her upper thighs.

Her insipid, pointless half-ponytail – bound by a ridiculous rubber ornament that looked like two tiny balls – bounced on the side of her head along with her steps as she waved at Kakarot and his woman, and she promptly sat down with the usual pair like an awkward third wheel on a motorbike.

The woman – he refused to even _think_ about her name – began to chat animatedly with the other girl while Kakarot stuffed his face like a baboon.

Oh, how he hated her.

It was not even as if the woman did anything explicitly _wrong._ She just got on his nerves, in a strange way that he could not quite comprehend.

She was trouble. But he did not know why.

And Vegeta, the elite prefect, hated being uninformed.

It was easier to hate her, than to keep wondering why his eyes always strayed to her whenever she was in the vicinity, or why the sound of her _screeching, annoying voice_ made him turn to her like a compass facing the north.

He really, really hated her.

8-8-8-8-8

“No way! Seriously?” Bulma asked, her chopsticks freezing on their way towards her mouth, the bit of teriyaki chicken dangling as it perched before her slackened jaw.

“Seriously!” Chichi laughed while Goku, her boyfriend, grinned with a nod, unable to speak around the sandwich he was chomping on.

“Goku, I can’t believe you punched her out of a fighting ring!” Bulma laughed, before she finally resumed eating, eying the grinning couple before her.

“It was a karate match!” he defended. “My grandpa always told me to never hit girls, but I needed to hit Chichi so I could win and get to fight the reigning champion!”

Chichi just laughed. “Yes, and so I lost to him that day, but I didn’t really mind, because he asked me out afterwards. Win-win!”

Goku grinned. “I told her I’d treat her to lunch because I hit her. And after that, we just kind of hung out together.”

“And now he’s my boyfrieeend,” Chichi sang dreamily.

“I still don’t know what that means-”

Bulma shook her head with a laugh while Chichi just laid more food out onto Goku’s bento box.

A sudden breeze off to her right made her compulsively look up, and as she did, her eyes strayed up onto a nearby balcony, where she found a pair of intense, narrow eyes looking condescendingly down at her.

Their eyes met, and as she hesitantly lifted her hand up to wave at him, he stiffened, quickly turning away and disappearing from her sight.

“ _What a strange guy_ ,” she thought.

“Neh, Bulma-chan?”

Bulma turned back to Chichi, who was smiling as she held out another plate of tiny pork dumplings.

With a wide grin, she took a couple of pieces for herself, savoring Chichi’s incredible cooking.

If it was true that the best way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, then the dark-haired martial artist was thoroughly bulldozing her way through to Goku’s, whether he understood it or not.

“Are you alright?” Chichi asked, and it was only then that Bulma realized that her chopsticks had paused on their way to her mouth, yet again.

“Oh, yes! Yes, sorry,” Bulma said sheepishly.

Goku seemed unconvinced though, as he stopped chewing for a few moments. “Are you sure? You look a bit upset.”

Bulma smiled. “Well, not really upset, per se… Just…” she hesitated. “Do you guys know anything about Vegeta?”

Chichi blinked. “The prefect?”

Bulma nodded, while Goku brightened.

“Yeah! Vegeta’s awesome! He’s my biggest martial arts rival, and my best buddy,” he said.

Chichi rolled her eyes. “Goku, he hates you.”

“He does _not,”_ Goku said. “He’s just a bit mean-looking sometimes.”

“Sometimes?!”

Bulma coughed slightly. “So, he really isn’t very… erm… _friendly,_ huh?”

“He hates everyone-”

“He’s just misunderstood, Chichi-”

Bulma’s mind wandered as the two started bickering, making a few realizations.

One: Vegeta was apparently indifferent to almost everyone.

Two: He was a martial artist, and for some reason, Goku liked him.

Three: If he was always the way he appeared, then Bulma had a very slim chance of befriending him.

She had never been around people her age, always being stuck around much-older scientists in Capsule Corp’s research and development team. Fellow teens were an enigma that Bulma had not yet managed to study and completely comprehend.

Being the genius that she was, though, she knew that teenagers are strange, hormonal people, and mood swings were a norm rather than an anomaly.

Some just disliked you for no reason, and perhaps, Vegeta was such a case. In fact, he seemed to strongly dislike her.

She knew that it shouldn’t really bother her, since she had already made quite a few good friends during her first two weeks in Shenron High. Her mother had warned her that it was impossible to make everyone like you in high school, and Bulma should be content with being well-liked as of then.

However, she found that a part of her refused to accept that Vegeta just didn’t seem to be all that fond of her.

It didn’t really make sense to her. It wasn’t as if he was _special._

But somehow, a strange little thrumming, from deep in the bottom of her gut, just insisted that _yes,_ he _was._

Bulma was nothing if not a scientist, and she knew that she would not rest until she fully understood the reasons, the issues surrounding the animosity that Vegeta displayed towards her.

Nodding to herself, Bulma decided: She was going to get to the bottom of this.

She had no idea how, but she will.

But first…

“Ne, Chichi?” she called. “May I have some more of those dumplings?”

8-8-8-8-8

“Alright, class,” the teacher spoke, a stern look on her face as she assessed each student with a tick in her eye.

Vegeta gulped, self-consciously adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose when the teacher’s gaze landed on him.

Ms. Uranai was a hard sell, a very old woman who seemed to have used up all her youth teaching delinquent high-schoolers.

She was bordering on ancient _,_ and Vegeta would not have been surprised if she had actually lived through the History lessons that she gave the class.

“I am rather disappointed in you all,” Uranai said. “This exam was not that difficult, and yet, only two people got high marks. Two! You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

The whole class sat unmoving while the old educator narrowed her eyes at them, holding out a folder.

“All these papers in this folder, have unacceptable marks,” she said, putting the folder down on her desk with a look akin to disgust. “I will leave them here. Do what you want with your own results.”

Nobody dared even blink while Ms. Uranai turned, retrieving two sheets from her desk. “These two passed. More than passed, honestly. And I shall be announcing only these.”

Vegeta straightened. He was sure that his paper was there…

“Mr. Ouji,” Uranai called, much to his relief. “Come and take your exam please. Ninety-eight percent.”

He heard a few soft, hesitant applauses from the edges of the classroom as he stood up to get his test.

Ninety-eight? Who could ever top that?

Uranai handed the paper to him, before her eyes suddenly brightened as she looked down at the remaining sheet in her hand.

“And this! This one almost erases my disappointment with the rest of you. Almost,” Uranai said, suddenly beaming. “Ms. Briefs, our new student, come and take your exam.”

Vegeta barely hid the snarl that rose from his lips at the sound of the blue-haired little witch’s name, and he turned, trying not to glare at her, as she shifted in her chair a few seats away from his.

A couple of other hesitant claps, as Bulma stood with a gulp, looking almost scared of the exam as she walked forward.

Vegeta watched as the girl finally held her exam up to see her results, and as she looked at it, her already large blue eyes turned _huge_ in her apparent disbelief.

Uranai grinned widely, as Vegeta stiffened in denial.

Could it be…?

“One-hundred percent. Congratulations, Ms. Briefs.”

The class erupted into surprised applause then, and Bulma looked up, a huge smile on her face as she looked around at everyone.

Vegeta looked around in distaste, lifting his hands to clap reluctantly, even though he was _seething_.

Kakarot actually whooped, the idiot, and Chichi looked so delighted, it was sickening.

He looked back at Bulma, who was positively preening.

He narrowed his eyes in irritation, unabashedly meeting her gaze when it landed on him.

Her smile dimmed slightly, before she turned away to smile at the other people in class.

How… _dare_ she…

How dare she best _him._

8-8-8-8-8

She was so happy, she could float.

Well, maybe not _float,_ but she could probably build a small copter to help her fly.

Her first exam in high school, and she was the only one to receive full marks.

This ought to make her mother happy.

Her father, not so much.

Dr. Briefs had been entirely against her going to regular school.

He would probably just sigh, and Bulma could practically hear him now…

 _“Bulma, you are a certified genius. Of course, you would get full marks. You could probably give your_ teacher _an exam.”_

She huffed, mentally sticking her tongue out at her father.

She walked slowly towards the corner where she knew her driver awaited her. She had given him explicit instructions to not move a single inch closer to the school than the tree that she had picked for him to wait beside.

She wanted the full ‘school experience’.

Classmates, a uniform, the walk home…

Her father had emphatically put his foot down regarding her request to walk all the way home.

With a bounce in her step, she carried her bag, happily humming a tune.

She was just about to turn the corner that would make the car visible to her when a small ball bounced up from the edges of the trees that lined the sidewalk.

Intrigued, she stooped down, her short skirt hiking up her bum as she picked the ball up.

“Wow, what a sight, ain’t it, fellas?”

She straightened in surprise, tugging her skirt down as she dropped the ball and turned around, only to find a group of four boys, narrow eyes leering at her from a few meters away.

They were all wearing green uniforms, and Bulma recognized it as the ones worn by another school on the opposite side of town.

“May I help you?” she asked stiffly, taking a small step back when the boys moved forward.

“We heard that a pretty new girl had started in Shenron,” the guy in the middle of the group said, his large eyes raking shamelessly over her body.  

Bulma frowned. “Well, I am pretty, alright. You’ve seen me now. Satisfied?”

Another stepped forward. “Not really. See, just looking isn’t always enough, is it?”

Bulma shuddered, small tendrils of fright beginning to zip up her spine.

She had never before been in such a situation.

She was alone in the street, just a few scant meters away from her driver, but they were still a few meters too far.

Her driver would be sitting in the car, and even if she screamed, she was certain that he wouldn’t hear.

She was stuck, facing-off against four perverts who were all twice her size –

“What the hell are you losers doing here?”

All heads turned towards the low growl, and Bulma felt an elated sort of thrill go through her while a small gasp escaped her lips.

His flame-shaped hair was unmistakable, and his narrow eyes were in furious slits as he regarded the thugs who were terrorizing her.  

“Vegeta!” she cried out in relief, and as he turned to look at her, Bulma noticed a few things that seemed odd.

He was, on the outside, still the same stern boy who watched over the school with the eyes of a hawk, the boy who snarled at students running in the halls or holding hands in the library.

Yet…

Something about the way he carried himself as he stood before the bullies was not the same, and it took Bulma a few moments to begin to understand the changes.

He was not wearing his glasses, and without the glare of the specs, his eyes looked ominous, sharp, far more intense than she could ever remember them being.

His navy blue uniform was not as prim as it was at school, leaving a few buttons opened and exposing a rather rumpled white shirt underneath.

Even his stance was different, just a bit jauntier than usual, his weight mostly on his left leg, while his arms crossed threateningly before his chest.

Vegeta was not tall, not by a long shot, but as she looked at him, he appeared so impossibly imposing, and she surmised that it was the looseness of his posture that just made him seem a lot wider, as if he was ready and rearing for a brawl.

It also did not escape her notice that the four boys had stilled, their body language screaming more than just a bit of discomfort, and she realized, much to her delight, that these boys were _afraid_ of him.

Together, those men could possibly be nearly eight times Vegeta’s body weight, but they were _afraid of Vegeta._

Vegeta smirked, before he spoke again.

“Well? What are you doing in my district? And just you four?” he sneered. “Is Ginyu still in the hospital from my beat-down last week?”

The shortest one stepped forward, hands in fists at his sides, but he was stopped by the tallest man with a hand on his shoulder.

“No, Guldo,” he said.

“But Recoome-”

“No,” he repeated, his voice overflowing with contempt. “We can’t take him. Not without Ginyu.”

“Damn right, you cannot. And even with Ginyu, I dare you to try,” Vegeta said. “Get the fuck out of here, and don’t ever think of bothering my classmates again.”

“Keh,” the boy apparently called Guldo said. “What’s the matter, Prince? Are we encroaching on your property? What do you think, Burter?”

A rather tall one with a wide forehead spoke up. “I think the Prince is looking after this girl.”

“Tch,” Vegeta spat. “I care nothing for her. But, as a student of Shenron, she is under my watch. If you know what is good for you, you will leave now, before I lose my patience with you for daring to speak to one of my people.”

Bulma watched as the four boys angrily, mutinously turned, and Vegeta stood, glaring after them until they got into a large white SUV.

They sped away, but not before a few middle fingers were raised towards her dark-haired classmate, who raised both fists back in a demented sort of salute.

When they were all out of sight, Bulma finally let out the breath that she had been holding.

She turned to Vegeta with a grateful smile, but was not expecting to see him striding purposefully towards her, brows furrowed low over his eyes.

“You are unharmed, yes?” he asked as he reached her, his gaze quickly assessing her while she nodded.

“Yes. Thanks to you,” she answered. “I’m so glad you happened to be close by!”

“Tch,” he said again. “You are stupid for walking alone all this way, in the first place.”

“I am _not-”_

“You _are,”_ he growled. “You have a driver waiting for you just beyond those trees. Why don’t you just have him pick you up from the school gate?”

She startled when Vegeta moved past her, walking towards the place where the car was parked.

Bulma shook herself free from her disbelief for a second before she jogged to catch up, walking beside him as he appeared to be leading her towards her car.

“I just… I wanted to know what it’s like to walk from school,” she said, giggling slightly. “I see it on TV all the time, and I wanted to try it.”

“Is this all just some game to you?” he asked snidely. “An experiment? An immersion activity?”

“Vege-”

“I have read up on you,” he continued. “You are a prodigy. A genius. You do not really need to go to school.”

She looked down, staring at the brown leather of her shoes in chagrin.

“I just wanted to know what it’s like to be… normal. Is that really so bad?”

He paused, and Bulma looked back at him as he stood just a pace behind her.

Vegeta looked thoughtful, melancholy…

“No. It is not,” he said after a beat. “Yet, you need to be careful. Just because you are pretending to be normal, as you say, does not mean that you _are.”_

He sounded so sure, almost condescending, and Bulma bristled. “What would you know?”

His smirk was slow, mocking. “More than you would think.”

He started walking again, and before Bulma knew it, they were standing in clear view of her car, where she could see her clueless driver napping in the driver’s seat.

She turned to Vegeta again, and though he had gotten on her nerves for a moment, she resolved to forget about the slight and focus more on the fact that he had actually stood up for her.

“Ne, Vegeta,” she said. “I really am grateful. Thank you for your help back there.”

He simply waved her off, and with a last smile at him, she turned to walk to her car.

She had almost gotten in when she turned back, brow raised.

“Say, would you like a ride home?” she asked.

His house was probably close by. After all, if he was there, didn’t that mean that his house was in the same direction where she was going?

He shook his head, then began walking back in the opposite direction.

She shrugged, before she opened the door and stepped into the car.

It was not until several minutes later that she began to wonder…

If his house was in the opposite direction… what had Vegeta been doing there?

8-8-8-8-8

Vegeta felt his brow twitch as he walked back towards the school.

He did not know what had possessed him to trail after Bulma that afternoon, but he supposed that he was glad that he did.

It was very unlikely that Ginyu’s boys would have let her go as completely unscathed as she had gone, if he had not been there.

He chose to focus on how Bulma was safe, thanks to his strange lapse in sense, rather than dwell on why he had followed her in the first place.

Those thoughts were much, much easier to deal with.

8-8-8-8-8

_To be continued…_


	3. The Rumor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bulma is easily besting Vegeta in all academic endeavors, and he is pissed. However, as much as he outwardly claims to despise her, a certain incident makes the rumor mill go wild, and both may find themselves being the unwilling centers of the high school student body's attention.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is inspired by this [High School AU fanart](https://twitter.com/okebtrash/status/1053890739501813761?s=09) by [Okebtrash](https://twitter.com/okebtrash/)!  
> Sorry for taking forever with this chapter! I am currently going through a very dark period and I thought, maybe writing something light and fun would help lift my spirits. I hope you like this update!

As if it wasn’t bad enough that Vegeta had been constantly ignoring Bulma… Now, she could practically feel the hatred oozing from his every icy glare.

She didn’t really understand why he seemed to despise her so much, when she knew that she had been nothing but nice to him.

Another thing that she didn’t understand was why she kept trying to befriend him anyway, when he clearly couldn’t even stand her. Not to mention that his dislike of her was, as far as she was concerned, completely unjustified.

Then again, perhaps it didn’t help that it seemed as if she was actively competing against him in… well, nearly everything.

Vegeta was an achiever, a very intelligent student who had been effortlessly sailing through school, topping all scholastic and co-curricular endeavors. For his entire academic career, he had been Shenron City’s best student, the perfect role model to all of the other kids who were helplessly floundering around in the academe.

He had been the best at everything, until Bulma had come along.

But that wasn’t really her fault, was it?

Their studies were absurdly easy for her, and she could probably get full marks with eyes closed and both hands tied behind her back… even with both legs hog-tied, as well.

She had expected high school to be easy, but had not anticipated exactly how advanced her level of learning would have been, compared to ordinary students.

It was almost boring, how all the math equations seemed almost laughable to her, and how the science questions were all from concepts that she had learned when she was five. The lessons were so mundane that sometimes, Bulma thought about just giving up and going back to her lab, to once again thrive amongst the community of scholars that she had grown up with. After all, what was the sense in her staying in school, when she had already mastered all the lectures and concepts that the other students were only beginning to comprehend?

It was as such wanderings flitted through her mind that a flash of movement caught her eye, and she turned, finding herself face to face with the snarling visage of none other than the one and only asshole prefect of Shenron High.

He narrowed his eyes at her before he pointedly looked away, and she stared after him, trying to burn holes through the back of his pristine uniform with her own sharp glare.

No. Bulma had not mastered everything in Shenron High. Not when a very pervasive enigma still eluded her, and Bulma was a scientist before she was a quitter. She needed to understand all there was to this school, needed to get to the bottom of every single mystery that life had to offer.

She could not say that she had mastered, _conquered_ high school, until she got to the bottom of the mystery that was Vegeta Ouji.

8-8-8-8-8

Vegeta supposed, he should be grateful.

The annoying, blue-haired brat woman seemed to be completely mutilating him at every single academic endeavor, and while a part of him hated that fact, an even bigger part of him was… impressed.

She truly was brilliant. The magazines and various journals had not been exaggerating when they dubbed her to be the most incredible genius of their generation.

He begrudged her for her talent, while secretly marveling at how she seemed to just know absolutely everything.

But as he said… he should be grateful. For, inasmuch as the woman was an utter genius in maths, science, languages – she was fluent in six damn languages, what the hell – there was one thing that she could never hope to defeat him at.

Physical Education.

He smirked, crossing his thick arms across his chest. From his seat on the bleachers, he watched the girl struggle pointlessly at the far end of the basketball court, trying and humiliatingly failing to shoot a single basket.

She was sweating profusely in concentration, the back of her shirt damp with her perspiration. Her smooth, pale legs stuck out from beneath her short gym bloomers, shaking as she did her best to assume the correct position to improve her aim.

She was _atrocious._

He watched as she threw the ball again, hiding a snicker behind a cough when the ball just bounced stupidly off the backboard.

“Argh!” she yelled, finally losing her patience and composure. She began madly stomping around the edge of the court, her face twisted into an expression of pure rage and frustration, and he just smiled as he followed her with his gaze.

It was just so entertaining!

Meanwhile, he had made the required three shots in exactly three tries, acing the practical exam, leaving him enough time to just sit and glower at the miserable peons that he called his schoolmates.

 _“Hey,_ Vegeta,” a rough voice called from his right, and Vegeta angled his gaze slightly to regard Nappa, who was staring at him with a strange, teasing expression.

Vegeta turned fully as he registered the look, raising a brow at the large bald man who was currently nudging him with his elbow.

“You could just take a picture, you know,” Nappa said, and Vegeta frowned, confused.

“Take a picture of what?” he asked in irritation.

“Oh, ya know,” another voice chimed in, and Vegeta turned to find Raditz, huge hair and all, slumping down to sit on his other side.

“Would you stop speaking like the numbskulls that you are, and tell me exactly what it is that you are trying to say?” Vegeta asked, now pissed off at the cryptic comments.

Nappa took a nearly imperceptible gulp, before answering. “Well… Bulma.”

“What about her?”

Raditz threw his head back, barking out a guttural laugh. “Oh, come on. Your eyes have been glued to her for the whole of PE.”

Vegeta blanched.

Had he truly been watching her for so long?  
Because the implications had, just now, occurred to him.

He sputtered in denial as his lackeys began to giggle like idiots, taunting him while he stayed speechless in disbelief.

“She really is hot, ain’t she?”

“Rich too!”

“You know, all the girls over there noticed that you had been staring at her.”

“Did you know that class 3-C is shipping you two?”

“She’s got T and A, full package - ”

“Enough!” he yelled, disgusted, and he felt a strange heat overwhelm his cheeks as he angrily shoved the two large men away. “You are both being ridiculous.”

Nappa just smirked at his outburst. “Oh Vegeta… your face is all red.”

“It is not!” he almost yelled. “Sh- shut up!”

“Oh shit, did you just _stutter,_ Mr. Prefect?” Raditz exclaimed, voice loud enough to carry across to the girls who had been not-so-discretely watching their exchange from the other edge of the bleachers.

“I did not,” Vegeta seethed, his voice oddly rising in pitch as his temper began to flare. “You will cease this ludicrous line of questioning immediately, do you hear me?”

He raised a fist in threat, and both large men recoiled and ran away from him as he kept glaring at their incomprehensible insolence.

However, Vegeta soon found that, in his indignation, he had made a bit of a spectacle of himself.

Several of the girls were either staring at him or covertly whispering with each other as they threw furtive glances as him, and he realized that he had somehow just made himself the center of something that he had never, _ever,_ before concerned himself with…

School gossip.

He gulped, looking further out and onto the basketball court, only for his eyes to immediately fall on the woman.

Their eyes met, and her sparkly blue eyes were wide, full of questions, her ruby lips parted in a small “o”.

“Tch!” he huffed, turning away, unceremoniously marching off, heading into the locker rooms while his ears burned in terrible embarrassment.

It was clearly a misunderstanding, but it seemed now that, his insipid classmates had gotten it into their hollow heads that he was… _smitten…_ with the banshee.

Ridiculous.

8-8-8-8-8

“No, really, we are barely even friends!”

“Come on, Launch!” Bulma joked, softly jabbing an elbow at the shy, dark-haired girl as they walked back to class from their lunch break. “I have totally seen you hanging out after lunch period.”

Launch’s face flamed, turning nearly as red as the hair band that kept her bangs at bay. “I was just asking Tienshinhan for a copy of the notes that I missed last week.”

“Oh, right!” Chichi chimed in from Bulma’s other side. “You weren’t here last week!”

Launch sighed. “I just wish that I could get better. The doctor said that my bipolar disorder is caused by traumas from my childhood, but it doesn’t explain why my episodes are so extreme.”

Bulma nodded, understanding. In the short time that she had known Launch, certain moments with her felt almost like she was speaking to completely different people.

“Well, has the hypnosis been working?” Chichi asked. “Has it helped tamp down the ‘evil twin’ or is she still there?”

“Still there,” Launch muttered, looking down at her arms that were wrapped around her books. “And the problem is that the ‘evil twin’ seems to be pursuing certain… other… interests.”

Bulma blinked. “Like what?”

“Heyyyy Launch!” a loud, booming voice greeted, making the three girls jump as they turned back to the man who called out.

Bulma’s eyes widened in instant recognition.

The tall man’s long, wild hair, flowed like a chaotic river of dark spikes, reaching down until it touched his narrow hips. He had a wide grin, and his eyes sparkled with mischief as he cast an appraising look at Launch, indiscreetly scanning her from head to toe.

“Raditz!” the shy girl squeaked, her cheeks turning red as she began to stutter.

It was apparent that ‘Normal Launch’ was silently crushing on Tienshinhan of Class 3-A.

‘Evil Launch’, however, had been shamelessly flirting with Raditz.

Bulma and Chichi, who knew about Launch’s split personality, understood that her flirting with the large man was an anomaly. However, Raditz was not quite as accepting of this idea, and now had taken to relentlessly shadowing the girl who was actually rather terrified of him.

Bulma cringed as she watched the exchange, and in her unease, floundered about for a way to excuse herself. She glanced around, hoping for inspiration, until her eyes fell on a girl who was pulling her things out of her locker.

 _“Aha,”_ she thought, cackling internally, before she turned to her friends again. “Girls, I think I forgot something in my locker, so go on to class and I’ll catch up, ok?”

She ran off without waiting for an answer, intending on rushing in to pretend to pull something out of her locker before running back into class.

Yet, genius she may be, Bulma had failed to take into consideration one little thing: The fact that the words _“Bulma”_ and _“running”_ didn’t go well together.

As she rounded a corner, she slipped on a random floor tile, and she screamed, flailing wildly in a useless attempt to find her center of gravity and avoid falling face-first into the ground.

A door in front of her opened as she vaulted like a broken pendulum, and as she groped for something to hold on to, her hands grabbed the person who had emerged from the room beside her. Confused dark eyes met hers for a moment before they widened as she fell heavily against him, sending them both tumbling to the floor.

“Ouch… Owwww,” Bulma whined, her cheek against the cold tile as she felt her body bend, her legs suspended high above her as her arms lamely braced her upper body. She felt a draft against her thighs, and she stiffened in mortification as she surmised that her skirt must have flipped up, exposing her to anyone who would pass by.

“Woman!” a furious voice yelled, and with great effort, Bulma twisted around to glance back at the person who had basically broken her fall.

She felt her cheeks heat up, mouth falling open in utter humiliation.

Vegeta was sitting flat on the ground beneath her, his torso tangled with her legs. Her skirt, as she had expected, had been flipped, giving him a very generous view of her brightly-colored panties.

His face was so red it was almost purple, eyes wide and panicked as he clumsily tried to push her away. A few people had gathered around to check out the commotion, and Vegeta growled as he finally shoved her off, dutifully avoiding the confused stares and murmurs that now surrounded them. She slid off his lap with a groan, and he stood, hands shaking as he dusted himself off.

“What the hell had you been doing? Running in the halls!” he demanded, straightening his uniform, briskly pulling at his crumpled sleeves and shirt.

Bulma pushed her skirt down as she tried to stand, dumbly falling back onto her butt a few times before Vegeta rolled his eyes and held a hand out to help her up. She reached up to him, and he clasped her small hand in a warm grip, pulling her up until she stood trembling in the face of his ire.

He was still angry, if his burning ears were any indication. She smiled sheepishly at him as he released her hand, and she quickly twirled her fingers together in front of her, shrinking back in embarrassment.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, cheeks still hot. “I needed something from my locker and I wanted to hurry. Did I hurt you?”

“No you did not,” he snarled irritatedly. “But see what you have done, making us both fall into such a disgraceful heap on the ground. This is why running in the halls is _not allowed_.”

She flinched as he began ranting at her, painfully aware of the growing amount of spectators. She could hear the increasing murmurs around her, and her face burned at the suspicion that most of these people were possibly making compromising assumptions at that very moment.

She took a subtle glance at Vegeta, who was still in the middle of berating her for her irresponsible behavior. His angry face was sharp, his eyes focused like twin dark lasers that were doing their best to drill holes of shame into her head.

His thick chest heaved beneath his coat, his large hands clenching spastically from where they were braced against his narrow hips.

It was in that moment, as she watched his thin lips hiss poison at her, that it hit her… It was as if a penetrating ray of light had suddenly shot into her, before combusting like fireworks in her chest.

Bulma felt herself begin to heat up even more, but unlike before, She knew that the reddening of her cheeks was something completely unrelated to her humiliation at bowling over the _one_ man within the entirety of Shenron High who had still yet to accept her friendship. 

She was… _flustered._

And as the girls behind her began giggling madly at the sight of her and Vegeta standing together in similarly rumpled clothing, Bulma swallowed loudly in understanding.

“ _Let them talk_ ,” she thought mischievously as a small, giddy smile formed on her lips.

She would have absolutely no problems with it, should this silly teenage grapevine crawl with assumptions about her and the perpetually moody prefect.

No problems, at all.

8-8-8-8-8

_To be continued…_


End file.
